A little bit about me.

No, of course I’m not offended. Perish the thought! There’s more than…what, seven billion people on this planet? A little more than that? How could you possibly know everybody? I’m just pleased and flattered that you’ve taken time out to click and learn a bit about me.

The jist is that I’m a tech columnist. I cover technology from all possible sides, meaning:

I write reviews of hardware and software. Usually, but not always, with consumers in mind. A phone app for tracking your bowling scores? Yes. A turnkey system for tracking the maintenance schedules for pinsetting machines in a medium- to large-sized bowling center? No, not really.

I write about stuff coming down the pike. If I hear about an interesting technology or concept I’m keen to write about it, whether or not it’s going to translate into anything real anytime soon.

I write about tech-related news events. Though admittedly I’m more naturally inclined towards those sort of pieces where one has a chance to sit back and reflect and maybe go out for waffles before cracking one’s knuckles and settling down for a couple thousand words’ of thoughts and analysis. I admire those who get a breaking news item at 1:00 PM and have a 300 word bulletin in hand at 1:13 and are already sweating bullets about the news that crossed their desk at 1:07 while they were writing the first thing. Alas, at the time of youth when the Hard News journalists were playing full-contact street hockey without helmets, I was inside, fastidiously hand-lettering the labels on my butterfly collection. But I happen to think I’m pretty good at what I do.

And I write about anything else that strikes my fancy.

My goal has been to have something to say and to say it in an interesting enough manner that the poor sap who somehow got tricked into reading one of my columns or articles or books will somehow feel encouraged to try the next one. It’s a rather sweet little scheme and it’s worked for (yeeps) more than two decades, starting with the national magazine column I landed back in college.

Yes? I see a hand up in the back of the room?

Well…sure, I admit that this is sort of a crummy-looking site. It’s hardly the sort of portal webapp that would befit one who claims to be, you know, in the business of writing about technology.

Please do realize that one of the roles of this site is to act as a guinea pig every time I need to learn something about web technology. I don’t hire folks to design and code for me…I do it myself. Annnnd very often I’ll spend several weeks learning a new framework and I’ll finally get to the point where I can actually make it do stuff, and that’s the point where I don’t need to proceed any further. But — whoops — now I’ve made a bit of a mess of my blog.